[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 29, Number 2 (Monday, January 18, 1993)]
[Page 39]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Statement on Completion of the Chemical Weapons Convention

 January 13, 1993

    For more than 20 years the United States and many other countries 
have labored to achieve a ban on chemical weapons. The long-awaited 
Chemical Weapons Convention is now completed and open for signature.
    I have had a deep and abiding personal interest in the success of 
the effort to ban these terrible weapons. As Vice President, I had the 
honor on two occasions to address the Conference on Disarmament and to 
present United States proposals to give impetus to the negotiations. As 
President, I directed the United States to take new initiatives to 
advance and conclude the negotiations. The United States is profoundly 
gratified that these talks have now been successfully concluded.
    The countries that participated in the negotiations at the 
conference on disarmament deserve special congratulations. The Chemical 
Weapons Convention is uniquely important in the field of arms control 
agreements. It will improve the security of all nations by eliminating a 
class of weapons of mass destruction that exists in all quarters of the 
world and that has been used in recent conflicts. It is a truly 
stabilizing and nondiscriminatory agreement.
    The United States strongly supports the Chemical Weapons Convention 
and is proud to be an original signatory. We are encouraged that so many 
other states have also decided to take this step. This clearly 
demonstrates global international endorsement of the convention and the 
new norm of international conduct that it establishes. However, we must 
not cease our efforts until the norm becomes truly universal, with all 
countries becoming not only signatories but also parties to the 
convention.
    Much work remains to make the convention fully effective. The United 
States will cooperate closely with other countries to bring the 
convention into force as soon as possible and to ensure that it is 
faithfully implemented. Only then will we be able to say that the risk 
of chemical warfare is no longer a threat to people anywhere in the 
world.